Xamarin in Action: Creating Native Cross-Platform Mobile Apps

Summary

Xamarin in Action teaches you to build cross-platform mobile apps using Xamarin and C#. You'll explore all the layers of a Xamarin app, from design to deployment. By the end, you'll be able to build a quality, production-ready Xamarin app on iOS and Android from scratch with a high level of code reuse.

Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications.

About the Technology

Rewriting the same app for iOS and Android is tedious, error-prone, and expensive. Microsoft's Xamarin drastically reduces dev time by reusing most application code—typically 70% or more. The core of your iOS and Android app is shared; you write platform-specific code only for the UI layer. And because Xamarin uses C#, your apps benefit from everything this modern language and the .NET ecosystem have to offer.

About the Book

Xamarin in Action teaches you to build cross-platform mobile apps using Xamarin and C#. You'll explore all the layers of a Xamarin app, from design to deployment. Xamarin expert Jim Bennett teaches you design practices that maximize code reuse and isolate device-specific code, making it a snap to incorporate the unique features of each OS.

What's Inside

• Understanding MVVM to maximize code reuse and testability
• Creating cross-platform model and UI logic layers
• Building device-specific UIs
• Unit and automated UI testing
• Preparing apps for publication with user tracking and crash analytics

About the Reader

Readers should have some experience with C#. Mobile development experience is helpful, but not assumed.

About the Author

Jim Bennett is a Xamarin MYP, Microsoft MVP, and Senior Cloud Developer Advocate at Microsoft, specializing in Xamarin mobile apps. He's a frequent speaker at events all around the world, including Xamarin user groups and Xamarin and Microsoft conferences. He regularly blogs about Xamarin development at https://jimbobbennett.io.

Table of Contents

PART 1 - GETTING STARTED WITH XAMARIN

1. Introducing native cross-platform applications with Xamarin
2. Hello MVVM—creating a simple cross-platform app using MVVM
3. MVVM—the model-view–view model design pattern
4. Hello again, MVVM—understanding and enhancing our simple MVVM app
5. What are we (a)waiting for? An introduction to multithreading for Xamarin apps

PART 2 - BUILDING APPS

6. Designing MVVM cross-platform apps
7. Building cross-platform models
8. Building cross-platform view models
9. Building simple Android views
10. Building more advanced Android views
11. Building simple iOS views
12. Building more advanced iOS views

PART 3 - FROM WORKING CODE TO THE STORE

13. Running mobile apps on physical devices
14. Testing mobile apps using Xamarin UITest
15. Using App Center to build, test, and monitor apps
16. Deploying apps to beta testers and the stores